President Donald Trump’s release of the classified documents connected with John F. Kennedy’s assassination is a crucial step toward helping the United States – and the rest of the world – to understand the Kremlin’s “science” of disinformation. Its deliberate lies about the circumstances surrounding that assassination have generated 54 years of alleged American involvement in that hideous crime, 45 years of Cold War, and the still-emerging evidence of Kremlin interference in our 2016 election.

Unfortunately, President Trump’s courageous exposure of the KGB lies may now endanger his own life as well. The recent cold-blooded assassination of Boris Nemtsov, a leader of Russia’s opposition, shows that the KGB (under whatever name) – which has killed 20 million people within the Soviet Union alone – is still secretly assassinating its enemies.

One of the most important things I have learned in the 64 years I have been involved in the intelligence business – 27 in the Soviet bloc and 37 in the U.S. – is that disinformation is an arcane and duplicitous undertaking, and that in the hands of the Soviets it developed into a whole philosophy. To really understand the mysteries of the Kremlin’s disinformation, it will not help to see a spy movie, read a spy novel, or watch TV news about Russia, as entertaining as those might be. You must have lived in that world of secrecy and deceit, and even then you may not fathom all its darker moments unless you are one of the few at the very top of the pyramid.

At the end of a summit meeting held in Slovenia, President George W. Bush said, “I looked the man [Putin] in the eye [and] found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.” But Robert Gates, who as director of the CIA became familiar with KGB disinformation, looked into Putin’s eyes and saw “a stone-cold killer.” Familiarity with the super-secret, widely unknown Russian “science” of disinformation could indeed change day into night.

Ten years ago, I published “Programmed to Kill: Moscow’s Responsibility for Lee Harvey Oswald’s Assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” My book was introduced at an Organization of American Historians conference with a review by professor Stan Weber of McNeese State University, who described it as “a superb new paradigmatic work on the death of President Kennedy and a must read for everyone interested in the assassination.” (Read more from “How the KGB Birthed the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Industry” HERE)